Wednesday, November 9, 2016

I’m feeling the need to write about the US elections, mostly
so I can process all my whirling thoughts. It’s probably important to start
with this, so you will read the rest in this context: I despise Donald Trump
for his entitled misogyny, xenophobia and racism, and for his cynical
manipulation of the decent ordinary people he has stomped over in his life to
date. And I deeply fear for those who really
do support women’s rights, climate change
action, civil rights and a fairer and more equitable and peaceful society. But here’s the thing: I also
understand why so many otherwise disenfranchised people voted for him.

Millions of Americans have fallen victim to the overriding neo-liberal
agenda of both main parties, which, in part, relies on the divisive nature of
its hate-mongering dog-whistles to pit man against woman, white against black
or brown, rich against poor, privileged against downtrodden, Fundamental Christian
against everybody else. Make no mistake, this kind of partisan rhetoric is a
necessary rubric for neo-liberal economic policy to exist and succeed – we have
to have winners and losers, and we have to blame ‘someone else’ for the
hardships such policies create. We have to hate, big and furiously, or else we
would be forced to look harder at ourselves and see that we have allowed this
state of enslavement to the ruling corporate elite to emerge.

Those people at the bottom of the pile have had so much
power devolved away from them that when they hear the kind of clever ‘I’m on
your side’ spin Trump wielded in his campaign they truly think they might have
a chance of turning their hopeless lots around. They need to believe the rhetoric that he really cares, because for too
long it has appeared (quite rightly) that no one does. That Trump doesn’t
really represent them, and that he has mobilised the very worst in human
behaviour to stir the pot, will be a slow-dawning horror for them over the next
few years. I’ll come back to this . . .

I have to admit that I despise Hillary Clinton, as well. Yes,
I wish to see a woman in the top job and, yes, Trump’s ascendancy will see
women and minorities suffer in a way that we all fear — all of which horrifies
the bejesus out of me. But Hillary stands for more than just women’s rights,
and many of the other things her candidacy and service has propped up are
indefensible to me: the tacit support for the elitist corporate status quo, the
sly support of immoral bankers, the undermining of democracy, the siphoning of
money for the chosen few’s benefit, the dreadful degradation of human and civil
rights, and inexcusable foreign policy decisions that prop up torture and genocidal
regimes, and kill civilians with impunity. These are all gross violations that
cannot be ignored — and are the same sins that saw my hopeful support for Obama
bleed away. Yes, there have been small gains in some areas, but by mouthing
progress while maintaining a corrupt system, they lose all credibility or
reason to trust them with further support.

In fact, in the middle of the night I had a moment where I
wondered if, in fact, Trump is a gift to them, doing their dirty business while
they can claim the moral high ground. Step one, alienate and divide the voting
population, pitting them against each other, dog eating dog. Step two, allow
them to believe that they have voted in someone who will make a real difference
and improve their lot. Step three, sit back and watch while it all implodes,
having set in place draconian surveillance and detention laws, pouring millions
into ‘homeland security’, ripe to start imprisoning all those whose wicks reach
their end when they realise they’ve been lied to and their lots won’t change.
Kiss goodbye to dissidents, intellectuals, academics, human rights defenders,
indigenous (and other) activists, etc. etc. Step four, give Trump four years to
rid the country of all those who call him (and their corrupt systems) out, all
the while weakening ties between people so that concerted protest is diffused,
and then, once this toxic meltdown has run its course, ride back into office
with more power (and less oversight and criticism) than before. It’s not
outside the bounds of possibility.

I guess what I’m saying is that it’s like an American
version of us having to decide between the Act Party and National — neither really
give a shit about the ordinary person on the ground, both only exist to
maintain their selfish elitist agenda and their positions of power, and if they
can diffuse debate by dividing the electorate and pitting them against each other,
and through slick PR and media control, then they can keep this going forever.
We should take this as a stern warning not to be side-lined by such divisive bullshit
– and those on the Left should take it as a warning: divest of
National/Act-lite policy and start to really walk the talk. Draw a line in the
sand and start to really speak to the ordinary people and champion their causes
– not merely pay lip service to it, otherwise we will see ourselves swallowed
by the same vile ugliness we’ve just observed.

There will be a
movement here to try to capture and motivate the disenfranchised; god knows,
there are enough of us. What we must do is make sure that we do not allow
hate-speech and divisiveness to guide our hands. We must speak out at every
opportunity, but not to slur or blame those already suffering, and we must hold
all politicians to the highest account.

If I could wave my magic wand and have any influence over
Labour at all, I’d ask them to take the brave stand and step away from their
neo-liberal side-track of the last 20-odd years, and to go back to grassroots advocacy,
loudly rejecting some of the worst decisions they have been party to
(free-trade-at-all-costs zealotry, dismantling of our social network, fudging
commitment to climate change mitigation, allowing state surveillance and the destruction
of unbiased media and the right to protest, allowing our involvement in other
people’s illegal and immoral wars.) They need to understand that times have
changed and the mood of the electorate is for principled and honest engagement.
Yes, they may lose the support of some,
but they may well pick up those who have felt without a voice and who have
bought so entirely into mainstream media bias against the Greens that they won’t
risk their votes. Gareth Morgan sees this (though the depressing truth of his
stand is that he’ll diffuse opposition and allow National another term.)

But do I think Labour will do it? No. Sadly not. And I’m not
even sure this will work, given our current system has already convinced so
many they are powerless to make any change, and spun so many lies, that people
prefer to console themselves through shit TV, rugby and celebrity gossip. Our
greatest enemies are ignorance and the lethargy of disenfranchisement, and our
current leaders know this very well and actively work to promote them.

Okay, I think I’ve run out of steam — and staring this so
closely in the eye is starting to bring on a kind of fatigued nausea. Your
thoughts?

Sunday, August 21, 2016

I’ve just come back from an
exhausting but inspiring four days at the IBBY World Congress (The
International Board on Books for Young People), held this year in Auckland. As
well as having my mind fed by the host of inspiring writers and illustrators
who presented at the congress, I was thrilled to have my book “Singing Home the
Whale” named as one of their 2016 Honour Books.What does that mean? According to their website at www.ibby.org:

The IBBY Honour List is a biennial selection
of outstanding, recently published books, honouring writers, illustrators and
translators from IBBY member countries. The IBBY Honour List is one of the most
widespread and effective ways of furthering IBBY's objective of encouraging
international understanding through children's literature... Important
considerations in selecting the Honour List titles are that the books are
representative of the best in children's literature from the country and that
the books are suitable for publication throughout the world. The
selection provides insight into the diverse cultural, political and social
settings in which children live and grow and it can be used by all those
involved with developing educational and literacy programmes and publishing
initiatives to develop exemplary “international” collections.

As you can imagine, I’m over the
moon! The thought that my crazy whale book will be winging around the world and
find a home among the world’s best is mind blowing!

International Youth Library in Munich where my book will live!

I didn’t know much about IBBY as an
organisation before this (to my shame) – but I was utterly inspired by the
speeches from its current President Wally de Doncker, a highly respected writer
in his own right. Two of IBBY’s focuses in its Mission Statement include:

to promote international understanding through
children's books

to protect and uphold the Rights of the Child
according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

What I find exciting is that they
don’t just give these lofty goals lip service. As well as supporting writers
from around the world, they have instigated wonderful programmes such as
working to reduce illiteracy and giving children access to books, understanding
that reading is knowledge and a window into the wider world. For instance, they
have supported children caught up in the flood of refugees into Italy, and 'called
on the US Government to care for the thousands of unaccompanied refugee
children and families after they cross the Mexican/USA border on their
incredible journeys from their war-torn and violent homelands in search of a
place to live and grow.'

In Wally de Doncker’s 2016 New Year
newsletter he said:

A human being is a
human being. A child is a child. An individual. Not an anonymous statistic.
Books and reading save lives and give traumatised children a chance to become
whole, contributing citizens as they grow up. . . . Always IBBY has believed
that every child everywhere in the world must have access to books and the
opportunity to become a reader in the fullest sense. We see this as a
fundamental right and the doorway to empowerment for every child.

I LOVE this! I love that an
organisation with books at its heart is prepared to stand up and voice their concerns,
and to work for the betterment of the whole world’s children. And if you read
the profiles of the writers they nominate and award each year for their various
prizes (including the Hans Christian Anderson Award - the highest international
recognition given to an author and an illustrator of children's books, and won
by our own Margaret Mahy in 2006) it is clear they appreciate the many social
and personal issues explored through the medium of children’s fiction and celebrate
the positive impact such writers have on their readers. That they view writing
as a means of EMPOWERMENT is something I couldn’t agree with more.

At the congress we heard from inspiring
writers from places like China, Haiti and Ghana, whose work is designed
to express the unique issues and concerns of their given country – to help the readers understand and form their own unique identity - all brave and inspiring torch-bearers.

I was asked to give a ten-minute introduction
to my work at one of the author breakfasts during the congress – here’s the
start of what I said:

I write because I can’t help it,
it’s part of who I am. And I write because I’m baffled and angry with the
cruelty and greed I see around me – and the stupidity of destroying our life
source – our planet. I write because I’m worried (I’m an habitual worrier!) – I’m
worried for my children, their children, your children, and for the children
who have no voice. I feel helpless. The only thing I can try to do is to write about the outrages with an honest thoughtful eye – and to shine a light
on the truth of what is going on around us. Often I write about loss and grief and the hurts we all battle, and
I try to show a path through – to offer hope. But most of all I write about the
need to ask questions – to challenge the spin and artifice – and about the need
for kindness, generosity, compassion and love – yes, love most of all. I want
my readers to think, to question, to activate, to care for others, to engage in what is going on
around them. …

Saturday, April 2, 2016

(This is the transcript of a lecture I gave at Waikato University last year - 2015)

I’m going to
talk today about the place of setting in fiction, and how to use it to the
greatest advantage.

As an author
of nine published novels (and one in a drawer and one a work in progress!) and
a teacher of novel writing for the last eight years, I’ve had to think really
hard about story over that time, and how all the separate elements build to
make a satisfying whole. I’ve come up with a kind of formula, a way of
thinking, that I find very useful in the planning of a piece of writing.

Okay, so let’s
start by tackling that word ‘planning!’ I know there are many writers out there
who say they don’t really plan, believing in organic process. That’s fine. I
tend to think non-planners fall into one of three categories: 1) they have a
natural sense of structure and story that is so innate they don’t need to make
it a conscious act; 2) they have written so much that they are now ‘expert’, in
the sense of no longer having to consciously work through the process step by
step; or 3) they start off and then get into one hell of a mess, because they
have no idea of where they’re going or what they’re trying to say! Sadly, with
a lot of new writers, they mainly fall into the third category!

Years ago,
when I was training to work with kids with learning disabilities, we did one of
those pop science-type tests to see which parts of our brain we relied on most.
The choices, from memory were: creative, feeling, logic, planning and intuitive
and we were asked to answer a whole lot of questions and then map the results
on a chart. The idea was (and proved to be) that most people use a selection of
all these processes, and that those who perform best have a balance across all
five areas. Indeed, most of my classmates did. I, however, had big spikes over
creative, feeling and intuitive, a TINY blip over planning and NOTHING for
logic! My family, I reckon, could probably have told them that without me
sitting the test! But it was an eye opener for me, as I am actually a very
organised person – and it allowed me to see how crucial that little blip of
planning was to how I function! So why am I telling you this? Because what I’m
about to explain is just my ‘take’ on how to tackle writing, and may well not
be yours. However, I have found that for budding writers, it is extremely
helpful to give this style of thinking/planning a go.

My goal,
when I’m writing, is to create a piece of fiction that works on numerous
levels, with layers of meaning that reveal themselves the more someone engages
in the reading process. This kind of layering takes planning, in order to make
it truly integrated. For me, it always starts with an idea – a theme, if you
like – the burning thing I want to say. I’ve not much time for beautiful words
on a page if they don’t have something to say. I believe the books that stay
alive over decades and centuries are the ones that tackle the big questions of
human existence and behaviour. This doesn’t have to happen in a big flashy way,
some sort of literature equivalent to a blockbuster (esp. as some blockbusters
are big on flashiness and rather short on intelligent discourse!) or an epic
Lord of the Rings type story, it can be in a very small, domestic story, such
as John Banville’s beautiful study of grief, The Sea. But it has to have some kind of pressure point that
needles away at the character and, if it is truly exceptional, actually leaves
the reader changed in some way on a profound level – in either their values,
understanding of an issue, empathy, anger, disgust … some core intellectual –
but also, perhaps even more importantly, emotional - response.

When I’m
struck by an idea that I want to work with, the whole process from initial
decision to start working on idea to a finished draft is roughly a year. Of
that year, the first two or three months are taken up with thinking and
learning (via research) as deeply as I can dig into all the issues. I think of
the end product as like the visible part of an iceberg – there is more, much
more, lying below the surface that the reader never sees, but which is totally
necessary to keep the berg afloat. And this process works by asking oneself a
series of questions that are vital.

What is it
I’m trying to say? This is the end point of the story. I believe you MUST know
the end before you start the journey, or you’ll get lost along the way. This
doesn’t mean you can’t take side-roads along the way to see where you end up,
but it does mean that you still keep your eye on the final destination.

Once I have
really figured out the answer to this then the next question is: who is the
best person to tell this story? Who you choose to narrate your story affects
how you express your big idea, and how the reader will grasp the more subtle nuances
you’re trying to impart. For example: before I started writing my book Smashed, I knew I wanted to talk about
the consequences of date rape. Now if I had chosen to write the book from the
point of view of the female victim, the main focus would have been the
consequences of the rape itself on the victim, full stop. But by choosing to
make the main point of view character her brother, and best friend of the
perpetrator, it allowed me to talk about a whole lot more: male attitudes to
rape, the ‘ripple effect’ – where one action initiates a whole lot of other
equally damaging actions, the bonds of family, the responsibility of friends etc.,
etc. It also widened the potential audience, speaking to young men as well as
young women. (As an aside, this book has been used to ignite discussions with
young people around such issues – and has been very powerful in its effects.)

It’s
important when thinking about ‘populating’ a story, that at the core of all
drama lies conflict – internal and external. If you want to write a book that
looks at the dangers of deep sea oil drilling, yes, you could tell it from the
obvious point of view, that of a protestor, but you could equally tell if from
the point of view of someone drilling, and explore their internal conflict as some
terrible environmental disaster unfolds and they start to see the light. The
first gives the reader a model of empowerment, the second provides a thought
process that leads the reader from accepting one point of view to another. Or
it could be the rebellious teenage daughter of the oil baron, who watches as the
devastation unfolds - another perspective again, which now also encompasses
family conflict as well and that perennial issue of children breaking away from
the ingrained values of their parents – a nice subplot. See how this crucial
decision can add extra layering, by thinking outside the square?

Now the next
decision is where does this take place? And when? This is crucial, and this is
what we’ll concentrate on today. There are other decisions that come after
that, such as point of view, attitude and voice. But let’s stop at setting for
now.

The setting
you choose, and the time-scale, impacts directly on character. It informs
everything the character knows, does and says. Someone who is brought up in 21st
century New York city slums is going to think, talk and react very differently
from someone raised in an igloo in eastern Siberia back last century.

Let me give
you a solid example. In my book The
Crossing, the first of my Blood of the Lamb trilogy, my central character
is raised in a very specific set of circumstances. She is a native of a small
island in the west Pacific, born several generations after an apocalyptic event
which, so far as the island’s inhabitants know, has left them as the sole
survivors on the planet. At the time of this event, a cruise ship of rich white
Europeans founded on their reef, providing the native population with much
needed medical supplies and food. Over time, this elite set themselves up as
leaders of a religious cult that enslaves the native population.

My girl,
Maryam, undergoes a ceremony as a two year old, when her blood is tested for
clotting with that of the Holy Father of the Apostles of the Lamb. When it
doesn’t clot she is taken from her family and raised on a small atoll with
other girls who test the same, told she is one of the Chosen, special, and will
one day (upon reaching puberty) cross to the Holy City (the now rotting cruise
ship) to serve the great Apostles, which is seen as a great privilege. The only
book she has ever read is the Bible. She knows of nothing outside of the small
(primitive, technology free) island where she has been raised, and believes
nothing exists outside of this.

How does
this set up affect the telling of the story? First off, it dictates voice. With
the Bible as her only influence, her speech and thoughts have an archaic ring
to them, and her points of reference come from its text. Her choice of
metaphors and similes can only be drawn from the Bible or from the island
environment and animals around her.

She had never felt so
enclosed before, the ceiling pressing down on her as they walked through the
empty corridors, their footsteps deadened by the strange worn fabric matting on
the floor. The air smelt damp and musty, not unlike the bath-house after winter
rains and, mixing with the cloying scent of goat’s blood, it caught in her
throat. . .

The fact
that she’s on an island, with no technology and no belief of anything outside
that world impacts on her story too. Once she’s crossed, and she realises that
if she stays she’ll end up milked of blood until she’s dead, what are her
alternatives? She’s stuck there. She has no comprehension of the possibilities
beyond.

Compare this
to placing a savvy street kind from New York city 2025 who finds herself in the
same situation! A whole different voice, reference list and choice of actions.

Now it
becomes my job to build this world and make it as believable as I can. I have
to come up with the rules and laws for it, the myths, the beliefs, the power
structures, and visualise how people live there, what they look like and how
they act. In this case that meant a great deal of research into the native
flora and fauna and culture indigenous to the west Pacific. Therefore I picked
Kirbati as my reference point, as its language and culture are not particularly
well known, but there is information out there if you search. I found an online
translator for the language (Gilbertese), lists of native fauna and flora and
their indigenous names. I stockpiled images. I listened to recordings of local birdsong,
so I could replicate the sound with words. I listened to the sound of surf on
reefs. I researched how to build the traditional manebas they used for
ceremonial and community gatherings. I studied how to weave pandanus leaves and
how to rig a wooden raft. And, through a very lucky break, I spent three weeks in
Fiji, soaking in real tropical Pacific life and taking notes.

I also wangled
my way onto a media tour of a brand new cruise ship, taking note of the
dimensions, which are impossible to guess just from looking at photos, and how
things smelt, the quality of carpets and drapes, the length and feel of the
corridors, the decorative features, the kind of books in the library, the different
uniforms worn by the different kinds of crew. And when the journos started
asking questions of the captain about entertainment etc., I was asking how much
water could be produced on board, how the internal plumbing worked, what backup
power generation they used, how well equipped their medical facilities were… I
think they thought I was planning some terrible crime, made worse by the fact
it was only a couple of years after the Sept 11 attacks, so it had already
taken a lot of fast talking to be allowed on board. In fact, I’d had to undergo
a police check and presentation of my passport before I could!But I took lots of photos too, seeking out
the weird little details that help to bring a description alive – and which
lift it above standard stereotypical photos posted online to something that
felt more authentic, more quirky, more real.

A writer has
to be a detective and an investigator, an eavesdropper and a thief. We have to
be constantly on the lookout for the interesting, the unusual, the detail … we
have to view the world from an outsider’s standpoint, looking at objects,
places and behaviour as if we’re alien anthropologists, seeing everything
through fresh eyes. When I was in Europe last year I noticed a used sanitary
pad on the stairway of the Vatican! I eavesdropped as an English tourist was
picked by a very smooth Italian man! I peered over people’s fences, snuck down
side roads, eyeballed police who were harassing African youths.

In the
second book of the trilogy, Maryam and three others escape the island, first
ending up on an island which is no longer populated, but which has the remains
of a crumbling Buddhist temple on it.Again, the job is to describe this through the eyes of a person who has
never seen anything like it before, and who brings all sorts of religious
prejudice and fear to it. I find I use images a lot to first help me imagine
myself into a particular place if I can’t actually get to walk through it. And
then I close my eyes, and actually view it as if I was viewing a film, walking
through it, noting the details that emerge – a feat of creative imagination,
that also involves focus on the other senses as well. What can I hear? What can
I smell? What can I feel?

… The boys veered off their direct route towards the stone gateway that
led down to the beach and headed, instead, for the parapeted building at the
heart of the complex. They huddled in its doorway and waited for Maryam and
Ruth to catch them up. Inside, a wide entrance hall was flanked by the shattered
stairwells of the two frontal towers, its once smooth tiled floor littered with
the accumulated debris of wind and time: crumbling stone, dried leaves and
dirt, stinking mounds of bird droppings and feathers. A host of parasitic
plants sprouted from fractures in the floor and walls, as if they’d pushed up
through the earth to rightfully reclaim what once was theirs — their florid display
at odds with the dull brown stone of the structure that supported them. Rain
leaked in through the cracks to form puddles that snaked through the filthy
flagstones in dusty streams.

Rows of thick stone pillars formed the backbone of the building. The two
most elaborately carved of them stood at the entrance to a gloomy room beyond
the hall. Maryam, Joseph, Lazarus and Ruth edged towards it in silence. Something
about the decayed majesty of the building and the stifling gloom set their
nerves on edge. Maryam’s head pounded in time with her heart as they stepped over
the threshold and tried to take in the dimensions of the room.

It was an enormous space, almost as big as the atrium of the Holy City, Star
of the Sea. The flagstones had been laid in symmetrical patterns, and a pathway
of darker stone drew them in towards the raised dais at the far end. There, in
the dull half-light, a huge stone figure looked down upon them. He sat
cross-legged on the dais — the same calm-faced man Maryam had seen depicted on
the carved reliefs outside. His hands, lying open on his knees, were spread as
though to beckon the four unexpected guests; a secret smile seemed to hover on
his pronounced lips. His eyes were lowered modestly; his chipped stonework face
was streaked with dark trails of rain as if he wept.

‘Oh Lord in Heaven!’ Ruth cried out. She alone had stopped staring up at
the figure, and was clutching Maryam’s arm so tightly Maryam could feel her
pulse fighting against Ruth’s panicked grip. Ruth was pointing a shaky hand at the
ground beneath the statue’s broad bare feet.

At first Maryam was not sure what she was looking at. Some kind of
tangled mass: a pile of sticks, branches and smooth rounded stones.

Lazarus released a long slow whistle. ‘Meet the former people of Marawa
Island,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper above the orchestra of rain.

‘People?’ Yet, even as Maryam spoke, her brain began to make sense of
what lay before her. This was not the wind-blown refuse of the jungle — these
were bones. Hundreds of them, heaped below the dais and spreading out across
the floor to either side. She shook her head, hoping her eyes were playing
tricks on her, but when she’d blinked again there was no doubting it: the pile
of bones was real.

She looked at Ruth beside her, and they held each other’s gaze. Then
Ruth began to speak. ‘And it shall be, if thou forget the Lord thy God, and
walk after other gods, and serve them, worship them, I testify against you this
day that you shall surely perish.’

Her words struck to the core of Maryam’s doubt. Every time she turned
her back on the Apostles’ teaching, it was as though the Lord sent forth new
evidence that His words were real. She brushed Ruth’s hand from her arm, so
overwhelmed by the dark shadow this new test cast on her spirit she had to
escape her friend’s needy grasp.

From this
island they end up being detained on a prison island fashioned around the
conditions of the detention camps on Nauru, an issue I wanted to give some air.
To get the full, ghastly feel of this place I watched videos online, read
investigator reports on it from human rights groups, and interviewed a refugee
who had lived there for three years before coming to NZ. Interview is a
fantastic means for finding specific detail. I could ask him about recurring
images, the smells, the sounds at night, the things that most drove him nuts,
psychological effects on him and those around him – and any strange things he
remembered. He told me about the cats that lived there, about the smells, about
a man who sat rocking from dawn till dusk, mentally unhinged, yet only given
Panadol because there was no mental health support.

The scraggly group of children had dispersed, but the cluster of men
standing silently beside the fence remained. There must have been a dozen or so
dressed in soiled white full-length robes, not unlike the gowns Maryam and the
other Chosen wore each Judgement time, and many had their heads wrapped in
coiled strips of cloth as well. But this was not what drew her eye or sent her
empty stomach churning over in disgust. As she stumbled past, she was appalled
to see that each man’s mouth was roughly stitched to hold it shut: crusty
ulcerating sores wept into their scruffy beards. Was this the kind of
punishment to which the guard referred? She reached out for Ruth’s hand.

It was possible to get some measure of how the camp was ordered as they
were led down alleyways formed by blocks of the box-like metal structures.
Passing the first doorway, Maryam glimpsed inside: five claustrophobic rooms
sectioned into each box, each of them housing up to three or four sleeping mats
that barely fitted such a confined space. The smell of decayed eggs was much
worse up here on the plateau, and it mixed with the stench of human waste and rubbish
to make breathing almost impossible without the urge to gag. Maryam tucked her
nose into the collar of her shirt, preferring the assault of her own stale
sweat to the putrid air.

Chickens ran riot in and out of the so-called rooms, and mangy dogs lay
listlessly in doorways, ribs sticking out against their matted, filthy fur. Sprawled
out in the few patches of sunlight between the blocks, lay other animals that
Maryam did not recognise: small furry creatures with long scrawny tails. These,
too, seemed to lack the will to move.

Everything was covered in a layer of sticky white dust and not a scrap
of greenery was visible between the rows. Inside some of the rooms, thin
dark-skinned women lay about, barely stirring as the girls walked past. Now
they crossed a barren courtyard between the rows of huts. Thick fabric had been
slung between the roofs, forming a shade to block the sun. A group of thirty or
so women and children sat cross-legged at its centre, listening attentively to
a white woman as she showed them how to trace out letters in the dust. They
were learning to write, Maryam realised, their thin faces etched with
concentration as they formed whole words. It triggered memories of her own childhood
on the atoll: her lessons with the Mothers when they learnt to copy out long
passages from the Holy Book. Then, she and the other Blessed Sisters had
complained about the long hours they were made to spend studying how to read
and write; here, the women looked hungry with the desire to learn.

Finally the guard stopped outside one of the metal huts and gestured
that they go inside. The space was barely large enough for the three stained
sleeping mats that lay upon the floor. It had no windows, only the open doorway
through which they’d come to offer any light or relief from the stifling heat.

People are
generally really generous if asked to help in a process like this – I don’t
think I’ve ever been turned down. And I always make sure that if the book is
published I credit them in whatever way they wish. I’ve spoken to policemen
about potential crimes and how they would be handled, I’ve been shown right
through the arrest process and down into the cells at the Wellington central
police station. I’ve interviewed a young man about growing up with a Down
Syndrome brother, a good lesson in realising we should never make assumptions –
all he talked of were the gifts.

I did my
Masters in scriptwriting, and one of the main benefits (the other being that I
came away with a really robust understanding of story structure) is that film
uses the language of visual symbolism – and fiction writers can do the same.
The colours of a landscape or sky send us instinctive messages without ever
having to spell it out, what is back of scene can underpin a major theme. Think
of the image, in my trilogy, of the rotting cruise ship as Holy City – a symbol
of decaying decadence and white privilege; of the collapse of ‘normal’ Western
values.

Now I think
about it, studying film taught me one other really important lesson too. Film
is very much audience focussed – it is designed to shift viewer emotions in a
particular way, and the writers are consciously thinking about the accumulative
effect on the audience as they write. They have preview screenings to assess
reaction, taking note of what engages, what doesn’t, where people laugh, where
they cry. I think fiction writer can do this, too – be reader focussed – ask –
how do I want the reader to be feeling now? How can I shift that emotion from
one place to another? And put together a group of carefully chosen readers who
can give honest and targeted responses.

The reason
for all this research and the inclusion of symbolic detail is to build up
layers, with the goal of each layer adding additional depth and meaning. Just
as we might return to watch a film again, and discover things we never noticed
the first time, I would like to think that a story can reward the reader in the
same way. And, because I generally write for a YA/crossover audience, I try to
make sure that as the reader matures, new meanings open up. What is implicit
here is that everything is chosen for a reason – chosen purposefully – and if
it can’t be justified it shouldn’t be in there.

Of course,
there is also the magical side of writing, for which nothing can be planned.
While some people think that planning and structure kill creativity, I believe
that it scaffolds the writing and secures it well enough that you feel safe and
more confident to engage in flights of fancy. If you have the story in hand and
know what you’re doing, you can then allow your creative imagination to flow
into the gaps between. When you are spending all your brain energy on problem
solving because you haven’t thought something through thoroughly enough, then
you can’t induce the kind of meditative state that allows real creative
engagement, diving deep into the dreamscape of the work.

There is one
final benefit to thinking very hard about the setting and time that your
character inhabits, and that relates to the development of the character’s
unique voice. I’ve already mentioned about how the use of similes and metaphors
flows from this understanding, but the other essential factor to unique voice
is the figuring out of the character’s attitudes and values – with the emphasis
on attitude.

A character
voice needs an attitude – a unique way of attacking every situation and
interaction, in order to create a rounded believable character that feels fully
formed. Just as each of us are shaped by our parents behaviours and values, so
too are we shaped by the community we were raised in, and the country and
society we grew up in as well. These are the things that make us who we are.

The voice of
my character Maryam, in The Crossing,
couldn’t be further from my character Ashley in The Nature of Ash.She has
been raised to be obedient, never to question, and is ignorant of the big-world
picture outside of her small frame of reference; Ashley is a savvy, politically
engaged young man of the near future, rough in his language, smart, funny,
feisty. The word choices for each of these characters has to be (literally)
worlds apart, both in their external and internal dialogue. And their attitude
to various issues should be on display, so they are not a cardboard cut-out but
real, screwy, screwed up, believable people who we care about and take the time
to follow, because we want to see them safely home.

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Mandy Hager is a multi-award-winning writer and educator based on the Kapiti Coast, New Zealand. She has a drive to tell stories that ‘matter' - direct, powerful stories with something to say. Her most recent award is the 2015 Margaret Mahy Book of The Year with "Singing Home the Whale.'